Ivan von Staich is returned to the Orange County Jail in 1986 from a Massachusetts jail after his escape from lockup in Orange County. FILE PHOTO: ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

A man who beat his ex-girlfriend's new husband with a hammer before shooting him in the head in 1983 was rejected Friday in his latest bid for parole.

A two-man panel of the state Board of Parole Hearings decided that Ivan von Staich, now 57, of Lake Elsinore would be a danger to others if released, had a long history of violence toward women and continues to minimize his criminal conduct.

The finding reached after a hearing at the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo counters a decision granting Staich parole in 2011. But that decision was overturned by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2012, setting up Friday's hearing.

He will next be eligible for parole in five years.

Staich is serving a term of 30 years to life in prison handed down by an Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald in 1986 for the second-degree murder of Robert Topper and the near-fatal beating of Cynthia Topper.

Orange County Deputy District Attorney Paul Chrisopoulos argued at the parole hearing Friday that Staich has little understanding of what caused the murder, has had negative psychiatric reviews and has demonstrated "that he will do anything in his power to control women."

Witnesses testified during Staich's Orange County trial that he broke into the Santa Ana home of his ex-girlfriend, Cynthia Topper, who was married to Robert Topper, on Dec. 8, 1983, after cutting the outside telephone wires. Staich bludgeoned Robert Topping with a hammer and shot him five times in the head with his own gun. He then chased down Cynthia Topping and severely pistol-whipped her before shooting her in the abdomen, witnesses said.

She suffered permanent brain damage.

Staich made headlines in January 1986 when he and another inmate escaped from the Orange County jail after overpowering a sheriff's deputy. Fellow escapee Robert J. Clark was captured less than a week later, but Staich was a fugitive for a month before he was caught in Massachusetts.

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